


Hashtag Bubble Tea

by TomatoBookworm



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Agent Trevor Khan, Deke gets a smack down, Gen, NOT boba, S06E05 The Other Thing, bubble tea, s06e04 Code Yellow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 10:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19271461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomatoBookworm/pseuds/TomatoBookworm
Summary: On her first night back home on Earth, Daisy just wants to enjoy her sandwich and coffee in peace. Wait, let’s add two items on her to-do list: 1) extracting information out of a fellow agent, and 2) hacking into a video game.





	Hashtag Bubble Tea

**Author's Note:**

> *This work is posted on ArchiveOfOurOwn.org for free. I do not object to personal downloads via ArchiveOfOurOwn. If you are reading it through any other means, please know that you are doing so on an unauthorized site/app. Thank you.

The first bite of her sandwich was amazing. Daisy took a sip of her coffee next and almost signed out loud in contentment. Food was running low on the Zephyr. She would never take more than her share when they were on rations, but it was hard to quake on an empty stomach.

 

Daisy took another bite and chewed. Back when she lived in a van, hunger wasn’t a strange sensation. She knew she had to pace herself and not wolf down everything in sight. Not that she could. Mack kept the kitchen well stocked in the Lighthouse. There was enough food to feed everyone on base for years. Fresh produce too. She bit down hard on an apple. 

 

Footsteps approached and Daisy looked up. She wasn’t certain of the current time, but it was dark outside when the Zephyr landed. Most people should be asleep. Piper declared she was going to crash immediately after a hot shower. Davis left to call his wife. Elena coaxed May away to have her injuries treated. Mack went to his office. Daisy wanted to follow him, to ask for details on recent events, to give information about space, to share whatever burdens that have been weighing him down. Instead Mack ordered her to eat and rest till the morning. Maybe he realized he was wrong. They needed to accept help from each other. 

 

A vaguely familiar agent showed up at the entrance. He jumped when he saw her. 

 

“Agent Johnson! Er, hi?”

 

Daisy racked her brain. He was one of the younger agents who joined under Mace, and she didn’t really get to know the guy in the short time between her return to S.H.I.E.L.D. and Playground’s explosion. May trained the man and trusted him, but Daisy hadn’t come across him in the Lighthouse whenever the Zephyr stopped home for supplies. 

 

“Khan, right? Weren’t you on babysitting duty for Deke?”

 

“I was, yeah,” Khan said. He swallowed hard. “Look, I want to apologize. Of course I have complete and total respect for you, and there’s no way I would have ever let Deke publish the game. I mean, he wasn’t going to include your segment in the public release version, but I should have stopped him from ever putting you in there in the first place. So… I am really, really sorry.” 

 

The words  _ please don’t kill me _ hung unsaid in the air. 

 

Interesting. The space team had returned to Earth several times in the past year for supplies, but Jemma never sought out Deke. Daisy suspected it was because Jemma couldn’t face the inevitable question of Fitz’s whereabouts. Deke disappeared quietly among the conversation topics as a result. What had he been up to?

 

“At least you apologized in person,” Daisy said. She tossed her apple casually from one hand to the other. “Or did Mack order you?”

 

“The Director told me why I was wrong,” Khan said with a wince. “And how to navigate such issues in the future without blowing my cover. I swear, this will never happen again.”

 

“I should hope not,” Daisy said. She let the apple drop and smacked her hand down firmly on top of the fruit. “And where is Deke with his apology?”

 

“He’s still in sedation after the surgery,” Khan explained. “I am sure he will apologize to you as soon as he’s awake. Well, as soon as he realizes that you know. By the time we flew back to the base, he was offering the Director twenty percent of the company to keep it between them.”

 

Daisy scoffed. “Twenty percent? That’s it?”

 

“I know!” Khan was eager to agree. “All his tech are from S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first place. Remorath Rumble has some interesting gameplay elements, but the core code is all from the Framework. He’s lucky if the Director doesn’t shut him down completely.”

 

“The Framework?”

 

“Agent Fitz’s training simulation program,” Khan said. “Er, I don’t know if you ever checked it out before the Playground exploded. I used it to train a couple times. Much easier on the ribs than sparring with Agent May.”

 

“Right,” Daisy said. The Framework was supposed to help agents, before the Darkhold corrupted everything. She shook her head to clear it. “So, how many people have seen me in this game?”

 

“Three,” Khan answered. “Me, Deke, and one other programmer dude. Sequoia was in the development room couple times, but she never paid any attention to the computer screen. She definitely would have dumped Deke a lot earlier if she saw you slapping him in that suit. I mean, the computer you. Not the real you!”

 

Daisy made a non-commital noise. So Deke placed her as the sexy figure of his video game even while he had a girlfriend. She’d spent enough time on the Internet to know what that might look like. Strong words and actions were in order. Although based on Khan’s comment about slapping, she should refrain from quaking every bone in Deke’s body and feeding into the fantasies.

 

Khan was looking at her with a nervous expression. He knew he messed up. She trusted Mack to have already issued the appropriate disciplinary action. 

 

“It was an asshole move,” Daisy said. “We are agents, and we can use physical attraction as a weapon when we need to. But letting someone else treat your fellow agent as a sexual object without consent? Not cool.” She channeled her best May stare. 

 

“I know, and I am so sorry!” Khan said. “It won’t happen again!”

 

“Good,” Daisy said. She gave him a curt nod. 

 

Khan visibly relaxed. He looked at her unfinished sandwich and apple. 

 

“I will stop interrupting your dinner, you must miss Earth food,” Khan said. He walked over to the fridge, took out a bottle, and offered it to her in a conciliatory gesture. “Frosé?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Frozen rosé wine,” Khan explained. “It’s really good.”

 

“No thanks,” Daisy said. She raised her coffee mug. “I want caffeine more than alcohol right now.”

 

“Boba!” Khan said. 

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“Boba,” Khan said again. “I can go get you boba if you want?”

 

“You do know that’s a sexist slang for big boobs in Mandarin?” Daisy couldn’t resist the shot. She watched in amusement as Khan blanched and sputtered. 

 

“What? No! I was offering to get you tea. Deke and I drank it a lot. I didn’t know!”

 

“Relax,” Daisy told him. “I didn’t know either until I took Mandarin lessons from May. Just say bubble tea next time.”

 

“Yes ma'am,” Khan gulped. He made himself a generous serving of the frosé, returned the bottle to the fridge, and nodded at her awkwardly. “Um, I will see you later?”

 

“Later,” Daisy said. 

 

She finished her sandwich and apple, then she refilled her coffee and grabbed a bag of popcorn. The hallway was silent as she walked to her bunk. She’d been quaking all over space for the past year. Time to do some hacking. 

  
  


—

  
  


“Arghhhhhhhhh!” Deke’s scream echoed around the room. 

 

“What’s wrong?” Daisy asked. “Don’t like your game?”

 

“End Framework! End Framework!” Deke yelled. 

 

“Framework?” Elena demanded. “Where? Are we inside it again?”

 

“No, just Deke,” Daisy said. She pointed to the computer screen. “He modified it for a video game.”

 

A burst of wind. Elena was back in her original position and Deke curled up on his side atop the floor. “When he’s in there, can he feel it when I smack him on the head?”

 

“Yeah,” Daisy said. “His version doesn’t block outside sensations completely, so the player can’t lose touch from the real world, that’s the only reason why I didn’t make this worse for him.” She snapped her fingers. “Admin command. End Framework.”

 

Deke jumped up from the floor. “What the hell was that?”

 

“You’d probably like it a little too much if I slap you,” Daisy said calmly. “So I thought a metaphorical slap would work. You like boba? How does it feel to be hit with a million tapioca balls?”

 

He had enough awareness to hang his face in shame, then his head shot up again. “But how did you get into my code?”

 

“See, that figure in there? That’s a fantasy,” Daisy said as she waved to the computer. “You don’t know me. You don’t know that I hacked into the Framework when it trapped my friends inside a nightmare. You don’t know that I was a hacktivist before I joined S.H.I.E.L.D. You don’t know anything about me beyond my face and powers.”

 

Deke looked gobsmacked. She wasn’t done.

 

“Everyone here has a backstory,” Daisy continued. “We’ve all had pain. Yeah, your life sucked before, but it’s not an excuse for everything. Now, it’s not my job to turn you into a decent human being. But as your grandmother’s best friend? Shape up. Jemma’s going to be so disappointed when she finds out about this.”

 

“Are you going to tell her?” Deke asked in a small voice. 

 

“No, but she will know,” Daisy said. “Someone has to tell the heads of the science department about their grandson stealing S.H.I.E.L.D. tech. You are kind of destroying your chances at making a second first impression on Fitz.”

 

“I will tell them myself,” Elena said. “No one should be messing around with the Framework again.”

 

Deke looked confused. He could ask the others about the Framework. If he wanted to take someone else’s work, it was on him to figure out the potential fallout. Deke wasn’t a child, and adults knew that actions have consequences. He could educate himself. Like she said, it wasn’t her job.

 

**Author's Note:**

> \- Usage of “boba” is a strong pet peeve of mine. The term roughly translates to “big balls” with ball=breast in the vernacular. It was coined by some male journalists in 1980s as a nickname for a particularly well endowed Hong Kong actress, so the term was inherently steeped in male gaze, sexism, etc. Some marketing people coopted the word for tapioca balls in the 1990s and it caught on for west coast U.S. If you are looking for an alternative term to use, “bubble tea” has no sexist connotations as far as I am aware of. 
> 
> \- While I am on my soapbox, please consider this my open offer to beta read any fic where you have questions regarding Chinese language and culture, or if you just want a Chinese American sensitivity reader in general. Just drop me a line on [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/TomatoBookworm) or leave a comment here with your Tumblr and I will send my email in your Ask box. Offer’s open whether it’s now or in a year!


End file.
